Understanding
by Nahrikira
Summary: One-Shot. Shego's gone insane and to save Kim, Ron must open his own mind to the insanity. "Fear became reality robbing Ron of the strength to stand. Kim was face down in her own blood, Shego knelt on top off her pinning her down. Shego looked up at him and smiled mania dancing in her once cold eyes."


**So I introduced my younger sisters to one of my favorite shows back in the day, Kim Possible. You know what? I still enjoyed it. But now that I'm older I did start craving a bit more... well lets call it "drama". So my mind came up with this little piece of angst. Enjoy.**

 **On a side note: I know I totally switched stories here and I do have more Inuyasha coming, but this would not leave me alone till I wrote it.**

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Ron pulled himself out off the pile of crates he'd been thrown into, hurting more then he could ever remember hurting before. His bruised body screamed at him that this time was different, that somehow, something had changed. It was somehow a deeper, more real understanding, then what he had understood with just his eyes, just his head, moments before. There had been purpose behind the force that had thrown him here, a purpose beyond getting him out of the way, a purpose directed at causing as much pain and damage as the simple move could cause; and he had never had that directed at him.

Spots floated before Ron's eyes as he continued to crawl forward, trying to stay ahead of the unconsciousness chasing him. Something more important than relief pulled him forward, _someone_ more important; and the sounds of pain coming from her would not let him simply sink into inaction. As he emerged between the last two crates his hands met the stickiness of old blood, a shudder coursed through him, but he pressed forward, head down not looking at the body, knowing there was nothing he could do for the person now. Past the body he finally lifted his head to see the end result of the fight he'd been hearing since being thrown.

Fear became reality robbing Ron of the strength to stand. Kim was face down in her own blood, Shego knelt on top off her pinning her down. The opponents' condition testified to a short one-sided fight, the victor barley touched the loser a battered, burned and bloodied wreck.

"Kim!" He shouted, hoping she would respond, hoping he was not too late. Shego looked up at him and smiled, mania dancing behind her normally cold eyes. Slowly Kim's eyes cracked open and managed to focus on him.

"Ron…" A pitiful attempt to rise was cut short as Shego grabbed one arm twisting it back and up forcefully. Kim jerked, the floor muffling a scream as her arm was dislocated, and Ron found himself on his feet stumbling forward, to do what he didn't know.

"Stop." Shego ordered; the hand not hold Kim's arm glowed green and she pressed it firmly to Kim's side. Nothing could muffle the scream this time, and Ron halted gritting his teeth as Kim wreathed, her body trying to twist away from the burning fingers. Shego lifted her hand, and Kim's eyes slitted opened again, her breath came raggedly between clenched teeth.

"Ron…run." Defeat and pain were heavy in her voice, and Ron felt tears running down his face. ' _How could this have happened?_ ' Kim stared back at him with no answers; Shego laughed.

"Yes, run little side-kick, I'll even let you go."

"No." He could answer Shego defiantly even as he struggled with Kim's order to run.

"No?" Shego laughed again. "Do you still not understand?" Her hand gestured widely inviting him to look around the ruined lair. "I'm done with this. All the pretending, all the lies, all the games. That's all this is—games, and I'm finished playing. I'm just…tired…tired of this whole farce." And she sounded it during that last sentence, despair replacing for a moment the hysteria that had tinged her conversation thus far. "That's what I'm trying to show you Kimmy," she continued after a contemplative pause, hysteria coming back full force. She grabbed Kim's hair and slammed her face into the floor with every word, "How. Ridiculous. This. Whole. Thing. Is."

"I don't…" Ron trailed off weakly, because almost unwillingly he thought he knew what she meant. His thoughts were turning in an unpleasant direction, directed by her words and the destruction surrounding him. He shied away from those thoughts—he just wanted her to stop beating Kim; but was afraid of what Shego would do if he came closer.

"What!? You don't what? Understand?" Shego focus shifted to him. "How stupid this is? This take over the world thing, where we fight, lose and everyone goes home happy? Again, and again, and again, with no end in sight? Who does that? How hard can it really be to cause a little real devastation, a little real pain?" Shego looked at the body lying next to Ron. "I understand now, I wanted him to understand too." She looked back at Ron. "So I showed him."

Ron turned away from Shego looking toward Dakken's still body lying just behind him. Ron was standing in the pool of his blood, a handgun was on the floor midway between Ron and the body. Shego sounded tired again and maybe even sad. "Why did I even stay with someone so stupid?" She snorted in self derision. "Sometimes I wondered if he even had a brain…turns out he did. I bet you wondered if he had a heart—as if someone so soft couldn't…well there's your proof." The pale body, showed two neat holes, one between the eyes, one in the chest. "Heh…maybe even I have a heart, maybe when this is over I'll check."

Ron looked back at Shego, she was crying, and confusion was written on her face. And again his mind took that unwanted twist, casting the world in a different light. A harsh light that showed more then he wanted to see. He wrenched back from that world, retaining only fragments of the insight he'd gleaned. "Maybe you loved him." He said, surprised at his own words.

Shego shook her head as if in denial, a soft laugh escaped her. "Maybe I did, Stoppable, maybe I did." She looked hard at him then, almost as if she could see into him if she tried hard enough. "Maybe you do understand… maybe those on the side of this stupid 'battle' see clearer than those in the front."

Ron looked at Kim then, lying dazed under Shego's weight, and knew that Kim didn't see, didn't understand. Feeling his gaze Kim seemed to focus for a second and gathered herself for one last effort. "Please, Ron…" She sucked in a heavy breath, desperate for him to just listen, desperate for him to just survive. "Please run…just run…leave." But he couldn't, surely she knew he couldn't, just as she would never have left him. Shego silenced her with another glowing hand on her side.

"Look at me Ronny, it's not about her anymore, it's just you and me…" and the question of whether or not he understood. And Ron knew that despite what she had said earlier, he wasn't leaving alive now unless he could understand. That Kim had lost this fight because she hadn't understood. He didn't want to know what had caused this madness in Shego; knew that he would lose something, some part of himself if he let himself know. Felt on some gut level that he already understood. Fighting against the knowledge; because he knew what she wanted, and he didn't want to give it to her.

Yet….to save Kim…yes, to save her he would do anything—no matter the cost. Ron's determined eyes met Shego's mad ones, and he opened himself to insanity. The world seemed to shift and heave; the solid stone of reality shattered as easily as glass; black and white melted together leaving only shades of grey. He understood.

That no one was good, that the evil in the world always believed they were just, that sometimes there was no lesson to be learned, that people hurt, that people died, that there was no purpose to most everything, that those who were lost were not always found, that innocents suffered, that not everyone could be saved, that children went to bed hungry, that abuse was dealt out and no one saw, that greed left many hollow shells, that sometimes you could not put the pieces of a life back together, he saw a dying world that no one would save. He saw the abandoned, the weak, and the desperate. He saw the crying no one would comfort.

Ron staggered under the mental blow of a different reality then the one he had always lived in. He felt himself sinking, and clawed at the sides of the hole of despair and madness he was falling into. There was nothing solid for him to hold onto, Ron moaned, the deep cry of a soul releasing innocence, what was the point in trying? The strength of his mind and heart failing, he stopped looking outward and just sank inward. Only then did he hear her voice, faint, just calling his name, saying it softly over and over, waiting for him to hear her; _Kim_. It was like a breath of air to a drowning man. Ron could not reject his new understanding of the world, but he would learn to swim in it, he would not drown in the knowledge as Shego had.

Ron closed his eyes; yes there was hate, but that only served to make love that much stronger. Despair might be rampant, but without it there was no reason for hope. You only needed to have faith in those things you could not see. A hero could only rise in the midst of great evil. And without the knowledge of death, you could not really live.

When Ron opened his eyes Shego was still watching him, still waiting with infinite patience for his answer. He bent and picked up the gun at his feet, the one Shego had killed Drakken with. Looked back at Shego, who didn't make a move to stop him.

"I understand," He stated simply and pointed the gun at her, Shego closed her eyes.

The impact of bullet to skull knocked Shego backwards off Kim, where she sprawled ungracefully on the floor. Ron dropped the gun, stumbled over to Kim and collapsed onto his knees. Gathering her in his arms he pressed his face to her, not able to take a breath until he felt hers against his cheek. That was when he started crying, relief that Kim was alive combined with shame over what he had become, and overwhelming everything the terrible knowledge that had brought about the end of his innocence.

Ron stayed that way for a long time cradling Kim's unconscious body, sobbing until he had nothing else to mourn. For once he had been assured that Kim still lived he had come to the decision that she would never see and understand the things he had just gone through; he had to keep the knowledge of this new world from her, he could not let her become as he was, missing that piece of himself. And so Ron let out all his grief there and then determined that he would never show it to Kim. He would smile, he would be the goof she knew and loved, and she would not catch a glimpse of this new self. It would stay deep inside, but never forgotten, never leaving, because he knew this ugly world would rear its head again, and he would have to stand up and shield her from it, because he had now become a part of it, because now he understood. He understood that to save a life he had to take one, and to preserve her innocence—her purity—he had to sacrifice his own.

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 **I want to say watching these shows as a kid and then as an adult gives you a lot of insight into how you've changed. This is sort of a growing up story for Ron - or you could think of it as Shego broke the fourth wall and couldn't handle it so she went insane, forcing Ron to do the same.**


End file.
